There have been many scientific studies showing that talking on a cell phone while driving is more dangerous than driving drunk. Hell, even Mythbusters proved it. The NHSTA says texting and driving is 6 times more dangerous than driving drunk. Here in Maine, anyone who has had their license for more than 6 months can talk and drive all they want, and there is only a $100 fine for texting and driving. Since it has been proven to be worse than DUI, the penalty should be the same or worse.
But there isnt the moral outrage expressed at distracted driving like there is that is expressed at drunk driving. Distracted drivers are just doing what everybody realistically does to get by. Drunk drivers have an inherent character flaw.
Drunk driving has a much higher recidivism rate than the other offences you mention, suggesting that a high proportion of drunk drivers are in a pattern of offending. In which case attempting to break that pattern through a driving ban makes sense.
I can run a fairly objective test to prove drunk or other forms of driving while impaired (breath & blood tests, plus other types of field sobriety / smell of marijuana, etc.).
Proving distracted is harder, and open to a lot more interpretation.
They say driving without sleep is equal to being way over the legal limit to the point it’s probably more dangerous than borderline (BAC-wise) drunk driving. But yeah, how do you easily prove distracted driving, sleep-deprived driving etc. For commercial drivers you can prove if they’ve not taken sufficient rests from driving through their log book, but that does nothing for the masses.
I am really looking forward for the day they commercialize self-driving vehicles (they have a few in the test stages) so people won’t have to worry about stuff like this anymore. (I also suspect alcohol consumption in America is going to go way up once self driving cars become common).
For right now, while sleep deprivation is probably really difficult to regulate/prove, I would probably favour banning talking on cell phones while driving, nationwide (My state has already done so. It’s a big drag, but I can see the reason for it).
They should also probably toughen up DUI laws by lowering the legal limit. America currently has one of the highest legal BACs to drive in the world (0.08: many countries use 0.05 or 0.02).
One difference I can think of - driving while distracted (such as texting) is something that happens only for a few moments, whereas driving while drunk happens the entire time you’re drunk. So yes, while sending a text might be 6 times more dangerous, driving under the influence also lasts more than 6 times as long - so driving drunk is still more dangerous, in that regard.
Driving while sleepy is more interesting, I’ve done a couple of morning drives and started drifting off. Pretty scary stuff.
Not really. In practice, laws are written to criminalize a specific blood alcohol level, not a level of impairment. BAL over 0.08? You are presumed impaired, even if a dozen people with the same BAL exhibit wildly different levels of driving ability. The tests measure something other than impairment. There have been lots of recent studies and tests that show that texting and other distractions are more dangerous than having a BAL of 0.08-0.10. We just haven’t had a second MADD (Mothers Against Distracted Driving) surge to political power.
But a drunk driver who is driving competently is just as guilty as one who is not - he is just less likely to be caught. Ditto for the distracted driver. The equivalent to a BAT is showing that texts were sent during time on the road.
The recent survey of those who admit to texting makes is sound like some of these people are just as addicted as alcoholics.
And as far as short intervals go, I’ve been behind plenty of cars where the driver has gone long way down the road looking down at his lap. They weave, they leave extra space, they react slowly, just like a drunk.
At the very least fines should be raised, but they did that in California and I’m not sure it helped much.
Agree. It used to be when I saw a vehicle swerving, or driving too slow, or alternately speeding up and slowing down, I might think about a drunk driver or someone falling asleep. Now, I assume it is someone texting or trying to dial their phone. The vast majority of the time, it’s a cell phone user not paying attention to their driving.
Give it a couple decades’ worth of PR—public service announcements, safety checkpoints, testimonials from people who were crippled for life or whose parents were killed in an accident involving a texting driver—and maybe it will be.
These.
It’s not perfect by any means, but “drunk” is reasonably well defined. “Distracted” isn’t, either for police to make arrests, juries to decide verdicts, or ordinary people to decide whether or not having a nagging worry about being laid off or having your master’s thesis rejected constitutes a sufficient “distraction” to make it illegal for you to drive.
Perhaps a “driving while texting” or “driving with non-hands-free cell phone” statute could be reasonable. But a general “distracted driving” charge would be impossible to implement and enforce fairly. John is worried about life in general, and realizes that he’s probably too distracted to drive. But now he can’t drive to work, taking the bus would probably make him late, and paying cab fare is expensive. So he worries more. Now he’s even more distracted. He tries to spend a few minutes to calm down, but it’s difficult because he’s still worried about getting to work late, so he still can’t drive. He calls a psychiatrist, who tells him to come in for a session. But John can’t drive (too distracted), and the bus doesn’t go there!
I agree that those things are dangerous, and that they have caused some really awful accidents resulting in death that were entirely preventable. The trouble is that most of the laws that have been enacted are both ineffective and stupid.
I would argue that since laws already exist for things like “driving without due care and attention” (the exact wording of an Ontario law, and quite a serious charge, too) that distracted driving is already covered in many jurisdictions without introducing new laws that address the wrong problem and whose sole purpose is ease of enforcement. Charges under “due care and attention” are regularly laid and convictions secured based on the evidence, like erratic driving or the fact of actually being in an accident, or some other observed evidence – reading or women putting on their makeup while driving being some examples.
I notice that here, at least, the whole hoopla over cell phones started when texting became common, and it was observed that idiots were texting while driving. So new laws were passed assessing draconian penalties for even touching a cell phone while driving, making it illegal to talk on one while driving even though that has absolutely nothing to do with texting, and even though the mere act of holding a phone to your ear is much less a distraction than the conversation itself, and even though the idiotic law still allows cell phone conversation provided it is hands-free. And even though police and other emergency workers are exempted and are allowed to indulge in this allegedly “dangerous” practice as much as they like, while driving at high speed.
There was a case here recently that was so ridiculous that it made the news: a woman was charged under the specific cell phone provision of the new distracted driving law and hit with a steep fine and demerit points. Her offense? While stopped at a red light, she picked up the cell phone that had fallen on the floor and threw it on the passenger seat. A zealous police officer saw the phone in her hand and that was it. Meanwhile, I’m sure at that very instant dozens of drivers were yelling and arguing with their children, wives, in-laws, and co-workers, some of them possibly so worked up about some issue that they couldn’t even see straight, but they were not actually holding a phone to their ear, so according to this stupid law they were goody two-shoes model citizens.
We have enough people in jail. Treating distracted driving like DUIs will only increase that number. A year in prison for the third time being caught looking at your cellphone, no matter how much I don’t like it, is preposterous.
Also, a drunk driver never regains his wits, whereas a person looking at his cellphone does immediately upon looking back at the road. They are far from the same and are not deserving of similar punishment.
using a cell phone while driving intoxicated.
Drunks are easily distracted and most of them talk too much anyway.